WWE Hall Of Famer “Cowboy” Bill Watts, who has had a rocky relationship in the past with the soon-to-be WWE Hall Of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts, recently spoke to Doug Mortman and Dave Lagreca on the Busted Open radio show about Roberts. Regarding Roberts’ sobriety, Watts stated the following:
“Well I certainly wish him well and I hope that this time it’s for real. I know he’s had these turnarounds and I think it’s been questionable if they been real. So I hope it is for his sake because at one time Jake was somebody you enjoyed to be around. As a matter of fact, we had set up for Jake a really good position with WCW. But then he went back and he slid back. And I’m just going to say this, that it’s a tough thing. It’s an extremely tough thing; substance abuse. My own family, I’ve had to deal with it. It’s the hardest thing in the world because you try to appeal to them logically but there is no logic. Because you’re talking to the substance. And it’s the most heartrending, horrible thing I’ve ever had to deal with. The Von Erich family for instance. The things that they went through as a family. I mean that entire tragedy. One of the hardest things was the fact that Jack never could get his hands around the understanding that his children; that his boys had become drug addicts. And that whole thing was just so–because those were good kids! They really were and then what happened to them. So we’ve seen the drugs and we’ve seen what’s going on with it. And I know why Ted DiBiase; I talked with one time. He was trying to relate to me how many guys that passed away and there’s been some substance abuse involved in wrestling in the last 20 years. And I’ve had a lot of friends that have lost their sons and that’s been the underlying factor. It’s just a scary, scary thing. But there’s a lot of things challenging the kids today that fortunately you know–I was glad that when I was in college, all we had was beer.”
Check out the complete interview at BustedOpenNation.com.